Trying to stay hopeful…

I really am trying to remain hopeful that Obama will stay out of the White House. But, in truth, it’s looking more and more likely that he will win. And that the Senate will have 60 D’s – or at least 59 D’s and a RINO who will promptly switch parties in exchange for a committee chairmanship. And that the House will have a solid D majority.

But it’s not just the polls that depress me. There is virtually no historical precedent of a candidate succeeding a 2-term president of the same party. The last time it happened was in 1908, when Taft succeeded Theodore Roosevelt. And it’s safe to say that Roosevelt at the time was a tad more popular than Bush is today.

It’s also about McCain’s campaign. It’s obvious that his personal desire is to run an honorable campaign. But we all want him to take the gloves off and go after Obama, especially on his shady connections with shady characters. I think that he is trying to accommodate our desires on this score, but the impression is that he is trying to have it both ways. You can’t really call Obama “a good man” one day and “a liar” on the next, and expect anyone to take you seriously.

But I gotta tell you, though, I have the sinking feeling that even if McCain were to bring up Ayers’ and Wright’s and Rezko’s names 20 times in the next debate, I don’t think it will sway anyone who wasn’t already committed. Even though it is absolutely true that Obama pals around with a terrorist, I think it’s because people don’t want to believe that a person like Obama, the leading candidate, “clean and articulate”, a guy whom even McCain calls “a good man,” could ever really do that. It would be like hearing a rumor that Superman goes to porn shops. Would you really believe it at first glance? And even if McCain did get down and dirty into the mud, all Obama has to do is throw them all under the bus – as we have all seen he is more than capable of doing so – and then the issue is over. We should have learned this lesson from 2006, but we didn’t. You don’t win elections by merely trying to scare people about how dangerous the other guys are. If that were a successful strategy, then Kerry would have trounced Bush in 2004, because that was the entire basis of Kerry’s campaign.

But I hope I’m wrong. I hope McCain can pull it out and save us from a Democrat Congress run amok. I hope McCain will be the one nominating Supreme Court justices. I hope McCain will be the one leading the GWOT. The hope, though, can’t last much longer. There’s 22 days to go.